Tag Archives: Mike Scioscia

Well, we flicker the lights back on merely in order to vent again about the Mike Napoli trade and, lo and behold, visitors old and new find us. The traffic surge almost makes us want to make another go of this thing…

So we’ll do just that, at least for the duration of time that the entire baseball world is wondering how in the hell anyone jettisons a player like Mike Napoli. We received a few messages from readers yesterday lambasting us about the clarity of hindsight. Of course, we flickered the lights briefly at the time of the trade, too, to let everyone know that we thought it sucked, so we feel compelled, and justified, to pile on now.

Every real Angel fan knew that trade sucked. The Mike Napoli trade, in fact, sucked even before it involved the division-rival Rangers (remember, the Angels traded Napoli and Juan Rivera to Toronto for Vernon “Not So” Wells before the Rangers then made a separate trade with the Blue Jays to acquire Napoli). Napoli was the only Angel besides Bobby Abreu capable of working a count and drawing a walk. Mike Napoli was the only Angel capable of, say, stepping up in the ALDS and hitting two light-tower bombs off of Josh Beckett in Fenway. Mike Napoli was the only Angel who every fan knew deserved to be in the lineup every day against every kind of pitcher. Those of us who watch the Angels intently knew all of that; it could not have been more clear, which is why the consistent benching of Napoli by Mike Sciosica, during Napoli’s Angel tenure, was so damned maddening, and so obviously personal.

But, you know, Mark Trumbo’s a light-tower kind of guy, too, (even though he struggles so far to get on base…guy’s an out machine), so we’ll buy that for a moment. Then we’re left with the notion that the Angels are filled with aging outfielders, which makes the DH position reserved for, well, Bobby Abreu.

Well, then…the Angels chose Bobby Abreu over Mike Napoli.

The point is that Napoli, coming off a 2010 season in which he struggled a bit (curiously, though, he posted nearly identical offensive numbers in 2010 as did Abreu), was still far and away the Angels best power threat. Added to that, Napoli was the only player aside from Abreu able to go deep into counts consistently and even draw walks.

So the Angels had exactly one player who could both work counts and hit for power. One. Ironically, everyone in baseball recognized that those two skills were exactly what the team was so sorely lacking.

So the Angels traded him. And no amount of justification can change that fact. It was an awful trade that made no sense then and it’s obviously looking now as though it might be the worst trade in Angel history (and that’s actually really saying something).

The fact is that Mike Scioscia fucked this up beyond comprehension, beginning in 2008 when he decided that Jeff Mathis was his guy. Mathis doesn’t hit and he doesn’t throw runners out…never has. But, still, he was Scioscia’s guy.

And now Scioscia is telling bald-faced lies to try to justify all of this. He and Napoli did indeed “butt heads,” on numerous occasions, both directly and indirectly (Scioscia alternated between dressing Naps down and staring him down). Scioscia consistently rode Napoli about defense and used the bench to dole out the punishment for perceived defensive transgressions/shortcomings. Scioscia is a master of old-school baseball double-speak but he’s fooling nobody with this, not even as he tries to take implicit potshots at Naps.

The fact remains that Mike Scioscia, purportedly the best evaluator of catching talent in the game, has watched this year’s and last year’s World Series from home while his former catchers have played critical roles in each of those Series. And this seems like a good time to mention, too, that in one of the biggest games in Angel history, he had Josh Fucking Paul behind the plate.

Step up and be a man, Scioscia. This is about Napoli’s catching, even though it shouldn’t be and even though you’re trying to pretend that it wasn’t. As the Angels’ gatekeeper, you chose to make a stand about catching defense rather than simply acknowledge that Napoli deserved to be in the offensive lineup no matter what, be it as first baseman, DH, or catcher. In an organization where there is such a critical dearth of key offensive talent, there is simply no excuse for scuttling a player like Napoli (who even in his weakest year (2010) led the team in slugging).

You blew the Mike Napoli trade, pure and simple. Just admit it already and then give Mike Napoli his due. And when you do, go ahead and let everyone know what both the statistics show and everyone’s eyes can see:

The sad and ironic truth is that Mike Napoli is actually a better defensive catcher than is Jeff Mathis.

Okay, now let’s go ahead and accept as fact that anyone who has Josh Paul in that game AND thinks that Jeff Mathis is a better baseball player than Mike Napoli, is no better an evaluator of catching talent than anyone else in the game (and, in fact, his superiority complex on the subject may just make him worse). Heaven help Hank Conger, who must now be the most anxious catcher in all of baseball.

You’re not fooling anyone here, Scioscia, and you’re only making yourself look pathetic in your attempts. One catcher with the “intangibles” is not more important than an offensive lineup capable of getting on base. We sure hope that, if nothing else, you’ve learned that lesson in all of this…lord knows the Angels need you to learn that lesson.

Of course, Scioscia is too proud a man to ever admit any of this. Just as he defended the Josh Paul fiasco to the bitter end (and still will) while quietly abandoning his strategic 3-catcher roster, he will continue to posture about this Mike Napoli trade.

Yeah, let’s look at this trade in “a couple years,” when Vernon Wells is even older, and see what it looks like then. Great idea.

But every baseball person alive knows that Mike Scioscia runs the Angels, both on the field and off, at least in terms of baseball personnel. That trade is on Scioscia (even if we give him the maximum benefit of the doubt, his favoring of Jeff Mathis over Mike Napoli over the last few seasons enabled Reagins to view Napoli as somehow expendable).

There’s no doubt whatsoever that Mike Scioscia ran Mike Napoli right out of Anaheim.

With Mike Napoli representing everything that the Angels need offensively, and Mike Sciosica so belligerently anachronistic about what defines a good offensive baseball player, it’s readily apparent that Scioscia’s stubbornness has cost the Halos the best offensive talent that the organization has developed since Tim Salmon. Worse, though, Scioscia’s opinion that Jeff Mathis is more valuable to the Angels than was Mike Napoli makes him look like one of the worst talent evaluators in baseball. Hyperbole? Not at all. Simple fact. That decision cost the Angels the wild card…at the least…and handed the team’s division rival the World Series championship.

Scioscia had a great run for a few years LAST DECADE. And now it’s quite clear that his brand of baseball simply doesn’t compete in the modern game (though it can clearly overachieve in the modern game). Stubbornly, though, he sticks to his guns in the face of all contrary evidence.

Thanks for 2002, Mike…it was great.

Now, please go back to the Dodgers with that 1960s/1970s brand of Dodger baseball. It simply doesn’t work anymore.

Jeff Mathis? Seriously, Jeff Mathis? No, really…Jeff Mathis?

Who in, or out of, the baseball world ever thought that Jeff Mathis was a better option than Mike Napoli? What scout thought that? What SABRmetrician thought that? What GM thought that? Only one man in the entire world ever thought that.

It’s disgusting, it exemplifies Scioscia’s lack of intelligence and stubborn-headedness, and it should result in the man being sent packing.

If you were watching the game on television, trying to read lips, you could only surmise that Scioscia must have been talking about the game across the street; it seemed like he said “puck” about 50 times.

Manuel makes an excellent point, though, in regard to Scioscia’s evaluation of Wood:

“I’m not sure what Scioscia’s issue with him is, but he’s around him every day and also knows what he wants.”

Often lost on us fans is the fact that Scioscia is a world-class talent evaluator who interacts with his players on a daily basis. It’s easy to speculate about guys like Wood but the truth is that Scioscia is awfully good at what he does.

Still, we wouldn’t be surprised at all to see the Angels make a personnel move before opening day.